Hey guys, a friend of mine gave me a 100 round brick of 20ga 7 1/2 shot rounds since he thought they were 12ga and Wal-Mart doesn't take back ammo. Anyways I told him that I didn't have a 20ga either but I would try to use the shot for some .44 Mag. Shotshell rounds. I have a few questions about them, #1 is will the 7 1/2 shot work well? Reading online a lot of people say the shots too big, they recommend between #10 and #12 for pistol shotshells. #2 is how would I go about crimping the casing to the brass? All I have is the roll crimp in my .44 Mag dies that I use, but if I need to I can get a Factory Crimp Die for it.
I use #8 in my .38SPL shotshells using the plastic capsules and got a pretty darn decent spread out of them at 7 yards. The best way I found to do the crimp was to back it all the way off, no matter how I set it I was breaking an occasional one. What I ended up doing, that worked well, was after inserting the capsule to depth, I'd put the case in the shell holder, run it up into the crimp die, then while holding the press handle down, I just screwed the crimp adjustment down until I felt it crimp and then unscrew it. Took a few trial runs to get a crimp enough to keep the capsule in place but didn't break a one after that, and haven't had one work loose from the recoil and we shot about 25 testing.
While I would welcome a contribution to my stock of 20 ga ammunition, I'm sure you can make good use of this stuff. Load your cases with a safe powder load, push in a round bit of light cardboard to cap the powder load, add shot and top with another round piece of cardboard. Seal with a touch of wax, then run them through your roll crimp die to add a bit of strength. That should make a decent shotshell round, though without a cup for the shot it will probably disperse rather quickly and add some lead to the barrel. Still, you can't beat the price...
Are you using the capsules from Speer? If not, I think Carver made some from scratch using overcharge cards and overshot cards with a roll crimp and glue. Maybe he'll pop in here soon.
Maybe a little late to the party but just a couple days ago i deceded to make some shot shells for my 45acp from a bad #7 1/2 12ga shell. I did 2 rounds cutting little cardboard circles and figured there had to be a quicker way, which i found when i spotted the quickie mart foam fountain drink cup. Heres what i did.
1 - deprime and resized
2 - reprimed and charged
3 - removed from shellplate while holding cup with a finger inside put case mouth to cup and turn and push evenly and gently until it broke through. Push case thru hole hole to remove
4 - used a 9mm brass to seat foam onto powder charge
5 - filled case with shot leaving enough room for another piece of foam plus just a hair of extra space and repeated process with cup and seated foam
6 - placed case back into shellplate and crimped
i used 4 grains of trail boss which is a bit bulky and also in a semi auto. It did not work the action but did give me the desired effect on cardboard and am sure will be a good deturrent on a most bothersome dog with no more than several stings to its hind quarter.
The foam is a good idea, we used to make blanks with it. No problems in the barrels at all. I've used leather, and thin cardboard, they all work well. The problems with the foam is that it might dislodge in a revolver from any previous shots. A little glue should solve that problem. A caution on the leather, it don't come apart, or fly off in some unknown direction. A hit to the body with the leather will raise a whelp, and could put out an eye!
I fired 5 of the 7 i made, the first two being made with a thin cardboard but the three i fired using the foam cup i recovered two of the foam powder/shot separators from the ground which were about 60% burnt. After the 5 shots i checked my barrel and found it to be fouled with partially burnt powder for the most part, which came right out with a pass of the nylon bristled brush that came with my XD and the barrel looked good to me.
I will try this again with another less bulky powder as soon as i get some. For now all i have is trail boss.
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